NYPD Gang Database Can Turn Unsuspecting New Yorkers into Instant Felons

Alice Speri:

Shenery, who had only three nonviolent misdemeanor arrests on his record from when he was a teenager, could have been released that night on his own recognizance with a misdemeanor charge. He had no idea why prosecutors would call him a gang member and strongly denied the accusation. But as his case has dragged in court for nearly two years, prosecutors labeled him a gang member over and over — telling a judge, but providing no evidence, that he belonged to Harlem’s Cash Money Boys, “a violent narcotic sale crew based out of 1990 Lenox,” according to court files.

More than a year after his April 21, 2017, arrest, Shenery learned that prosecutors appeared to be basing their accusation on his inclusion in a database of more than 42,000 New Yorkers that the New York Police Department considers as “gang members.”

As The Intercept has reported, the NYPD’s gang database was massively expanded in recent years, even as gang-related crime dropped to historic lows. The information on the secretive list is available to prosecutors but not to those named in the database, who often learn that the police have labeled them gang members only if they are arrested and slammed with inexplicably harsh charges or excessive bond. The database has been widely criticized as arbitrary, discriminatory, and over-inclusive — with no clear process in place to discover or challenge one’s alleged gang affiliation. Like Shenery, an overwhelming majority of people in the database are young black and Latino men.